Gonzales calls for Ebola preparedness plan

Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to out­line its plan to pro­tect cit­i­zens from a pos­si­ble out­break of the Ebo­la virus, as sev­er­al coun­tries have in­tro­duced screen­ing mea­sures for trav­ellers.

Gon­za­les’ call comes as coun­tries in­clud­ing An­tigua and Bar­bu­da have im­ple­ment­ed Ebo­la screen­ing for ar­riv­ing pas­sen­gers, while Brazil re­cent­ly test­ed and cleared two peo­ple who were be­ing mon­i­tored for the virus.

Re­ports of Ebo­la, a high­ly in­fec­tious and po­ten­tial­ly lethal vi­ral dis­ease, emerged from the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of the Con­go in April. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,000 peo­ple have died so far, and the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion has de­clared the out­break a pub­lic health emer­gency of in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern.

The Unit­ed States and Cana­da have re­strict­ed trav­el for peo­ple from the DRC, Ugan­da and South Su­dan for cer­tain pe­ri­ods, while in­tro­duc­ing screen­ing and quar­an­tine mea­sures.

The Ba­hamas has al­so in­tro­duced re­stric­tions on res­i­dents trav­el­ling from the three coun­tries and an­nounced en­hanced health screen­ings and pos­si­ble quar­an­tines for for­eign­ers who were present there. The Cay­man Is­lands has im­ple­ment­ed en­hanced screen­ing mea­sures af­ter a flight ar­rived car­ry­ing two pas­sen­gers who had trav­elled to the DRC.

On Tues­day, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da an­nounced an im­me­di­ate halt to visa waivers for trav­ellers orig­i­nat­ing from African na­tions. The coun­try al­so said screen­ing would re­quire trav­ellers to dis­close their trav­el his­to­ry for the 45-day pe­ri­od be­fore screen­ing and that re­sponse pro­to­cols had been ad­vanced.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to ques­tions from the Trinidad Guardian. How­ev­er, se­nior health of­fi­cials said au­thor­i­ties have been mon­i­tor­ing the Ebo­la is­sue since re­ports be­gan and had tak­en note of Brazil’s test­ing.

The of­fi­cials said Gov­ern­ment would be proac­tive on the mat­ter and was aware of pro­to­cols that could be used.

Trans­port Min­is­ter Eli Zark­our did not re­spond on whether screen­ing would be im­ple­ment­ed at ports.

Gon­za­les said Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters must ad­dress the pub­lic on mat­ters af­fect­ing cit­i­zens.

“The Min­is­ters should ‘awake’ and ad­dress the na­tion on crit­i­cal mat­ters af­fect­ing and threat­en­ing cit­i­zens. Brazil was test­ing per­sons, re­gion­al neigh­bours are im­ple­ment­ing pro­to­cols to pro­tect cit­i­zens - it's a mat­ter of se­ri­ous con­cern for Gov­ern­ments glob­al­ly.”

He said cit­i­zens had not re­ceived in­for­ma­tion on mea­sures be­ing im­ple­ment­ed or planned to pro­tect Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“It's time to in­form cit­i­zens on mea­sures such as trav­el re­stric­tions to af­fect­ed re­gions, screen­ing at ports, prepa­ra­tion of treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties and re­sources for health care work­ers. Gov­ern­ment can­not wait un­til a case ar­rives! They must fol­low the PNM's ex­am­ple with COVID man­age­ment which se­cured TT.”